Suggestions for NAUCC 2007

General
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Convention overall:
Huge success! Standing ovation! Very well done, especially for a first effort by the folks in Memphis. I look forward to going back someday, though I wouldn’t mind having it in the spring or fall… :slight_smile:

Directions:
It was a little tough this year, with the spread out accommodations vs. main school, new/renamed streets and a few other factors. I especially appreciated having all the directions available online ahead of time so I could bring copies of all the directions with me, which I did.

We also brought a Magellan in-car GPS device to help us find our way around. Those things are real handy, though I don’t think ours can accept straight coordinates.

Having all driving directions originate from the St. Georges school was a little awkward, as most of the driving was from the hotel. But with spread-out hotels, what are you going to do? Gotta have a common starting point.

I noticed a few people had problems linking up ride names with sets of directions. At least one person went to the wrong location for one of the Coker rides. After a while I noticed the letter designations on the map related to some of the directions, but perhaps not all. Small stuff.

Awards:
Still ran a little long, but the minor-awards-in-a-bag thing was a godsend! Thank you! I recommend doing the same with the lower-echelon artistic events as well. Beyond that, I think the USA just has too many awards for stuff. BTW, the food from Corky’s got raves at my table, except for a picky youngster or two.

Yes, people like bringing home awards, but you don’t need to have eight medals if you hardly practiced (racing events). This takes away their meaning on the events you (or others) practiced really hard for. I will be doing some analysis of results from the last few years’ NAUCCs to see the number of awards given out per person, average a person received, etc.

Along with this we need to take a look at our mandatory, never-filled age groups. What’s the fun of winning gold in every race you enter, just by finishing? This doesn’t teach you anything about sports, winning or losing. Our age group system should be flexible, and determined based on the number of riders participating. I believe this year the biggest-attended age group may have been the 40-49 men. Who’d have thought?

Public show:
Too long. This is usually the case, but it’s always good to shoot for something short, as they tend to run long. And nobody should get 30 minutes of stage time! BTW, a stage is always better if we can get one, but if it’s to be combined with competition finals, it has to be at least 11 x 14 meters, which is pretty big. The show’s host started off thinking he needed to do filler, but got over that pretty quick. Sorry about some of that between-act nonsense.

Workshops:
Oops (I don’t think there were any). I should have been more involved in that area. I’d like to see us give workshops equal importance to some of the competition events.

USA Meeting:
Needs a room other than the gym. Having two gyms made it logistically workable, but sound was a problem. Made us just want to get it over with, rather than discuss some issues that really need discussing.

Two Gyms:
AWESOME!!! I wish we could do this every year! What a luxury to be able to have two events going on at a time, or just “open gym” in one, which is one of the important components of these conventions. Thanks for that!

Street Freestyle event:
Thanks for squeezing it in! It was a little rushed and informal, but a historic start to what will probably become a permanent event. Next time we’ll try to set it up so it’s easier to photograph/video! (it was in the shade, with a brightly lit field in the background) Too bad we couldn’t legally use the skate park, but insurance is expensive, and red tape is hard to wade through.

Rain:
Ahhh! That felt good!

2007:
The venue being looked at is Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. This was where we had NUM in 1985 and 1988. The hosts are not planning to book or use the indoor track, which is 1/8 mile around. Ypsilanti is famous for Tucker building (or at least designing) his cars there, and the original location for the Dominos Pizza chain. On a map it’s right next to Ann Arbor (University of Michigan), which is about 30 miles west of downtown Detroit. Redford is roughly in-between.

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convenient :slight_smile:

That would be nice. My sister lives about an hour away. Excuse for a detour during a family visit. Let’s see how active I am in a year :slight_smile:

Workshops for learning new skills would be great.

Cheers,
Tom

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This makes a lot of sense. I would rather see a group that had a wider age range and more competitors. If necessary we could even divide each age group into expert and regular to make it more fair. This year we had 14 year olds who had just started riding competing against 14 year olds who had been riding 6 years. This was the case in many of the age groups. I would rather see us to get a minimum of 10-15 people in an age group and then divide the age group into two, based on skill, if necessary.

Also, in my opinion, there is no need to separate competition by sex. As far as I can tell, there is no advantage to being male or female in unicycling. By doing away with the male/female separation, we would fill age groups more effectively.

The Elvis act, while a bit corny (though not as corny as the host :wink: ), was very good, but I for one could have done without the dancers and the magician.

As someone who spent more time observing than competing, I would have gladly attended a judging workshop or a unicycle maintenance workshop.

But all in all, it was a superlative effort by the Memphis club and all others who helped out. Great job!

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As we have learned over the years, years riding is not necessarily an indicator of ability level. Some riders blow us away on their first visit, while others have been coming to these things for 20 years and more and can barely make it through the Obstacle Course. So any such division should be based on performance alone, which we kind of do already. I like the idea.

Where athletic ability is tested, males generally have a genetic advantage over females in the basic makeup of our muscle tissue. Ours has a lower percentage of body fat, combined with other factors which make us unequal. So like most every other sport, I’m in favor of division by sex. We just have way too many age groups. If your number of awards (which our current rules require hosts to purchase) is greater than your number of competitors per group, there’s a problem. Our problem is legislated in, so it requires a rule change to correct. Hopefully our committee members will understand this and be able to think of the larger picture, not just of “their kids” ability to have a nice medal haul regardless of training.

I actually thought the dancers were great, and their act was too short compared to some of the others. Or maybe their time was just right, and a longer one would have taken away from their appeal. The magician (Kid Davie) is a really talented guy, but he was given too many minutes. Eliminating the levitation would have gotten him down to a real nice amount of minutes.

Fun fact:
I’m pretty sure nobody in the organizing group was aware Kid Davie was planning to do an Elvis bit, as we already had a “surprise” Elvis planned to follow him. Imagine our astonishment when Davies put on “his” Elvis music, which was the exact same thing our singing Elvis was about to use right after! But because his straightjacket bit was so silly, there was no conflict at all.

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I was only able to make one of the fun rides. I liked the sign up sheets, the morning start times were a bit early for one with a child in tow and adjusting from Pacific to Central time but there was heat to be beat.

Sign up sheet - Good
Clear start time and location - Good
It would have been good to also have meet time at the gym. For example, if the ride was to start at 6:00, and it’s a 45 minute drive, meet up at the gyms for carpool and/or convoy at 5:00 for those coming directly from the gym.

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how about long jump

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I was the opposite. I could have done without the long Elvis routine but thought (like Foss) that the dance routine was too short (tho I was sad to see all of the dancers and their parents leave as soon as the act was over). Of course, it being Memphis I could totally see how some could really get into the Elvis part, so no complaints there – I just didn’t much care for it myself. I liked the magician (why wasn’t he miked?!) and the juggler and pretty much the whole show.

Oops – we did forget those workshops! I was planning to run a few myself. Next time.

Totally agree!

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This is a good idea. We actually did this, sort of spur of moment, when several sign-uppers for the Coker Shelby Forest ride caught me at the sign-up sheet. We met at a convenient Exxon and carpooled/caravaned the 25 minute commute. The Exxon was actually more convenient than St. George’s. Since that venue was so off the beaten path, I’d’ve been smart to inform everyone. When I come to [your town for NAUCC ####], I will appreciate the application of this suggestion.

Something that was helpfull for many attendees was having my or Tommy’s, (poor Tommy), or Richard’s, or each others’ cellphone numbers. I think a cellphone list of whoever wants to be listed, handed out or included in the program, would be good. A tiny network of information in a pinch. Each with message recording capability… There could be a little box on the registration form that says “Would you like this number included on the cellphone list?”

By the way. Elvis (Joe Kent) knew what the magician was going to do. He was ok with it. He’s a good sport. The fact that they used the same intro music is understandable. That’s how E started his shows. Even tho it was a little odd, Joe waited a good while before coming out, just like the King, to let the moment build. I hope yall got some good pix with him. May favorite were the gymnasts. John gave me goosebumps when he said that a standing ovation from a bunch of unicyclists means a lot. Maria Lingerfelt produced that show, an admirable first attempt at show production. I think it all added up to a nice taste of what goes on around here. We probably could’ve made it 5 hrs long. We could’ve had the Rendezvous Pit Boss come show you how to cook a proper BBQ rib…

-Mud

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Mmmmm. We went there on Friday with Mike Penton. I’m not an expert, but Jacquie said it was the best BBQ she’s ever had. She loved the whole Memphis experience, from the nice people to the musical history to Elvis to Beale St.